Story of an Hour & Article of the Week

This week, we are reading this article for the Article of the Week. Students are asked to 1. Read the article and mark any observations and confusion. 2. Show evidence of a close reading by marking the text with questions and comments. 3. Write a one-page reflection on your own sheet of paper. They should use the questions at the back of the article to respond. Keep in mind, the article was written August 12, 2014, and things change quickly, so there is more to know about any subject. Students can find more at this link from the NY Times.

In class, we are reading "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin available here. We are looking at figurative language, irony, suspense, and the way the story was crafted. Students will write a one-page argument paper with two large supporting paragraphs.  

Thursday & Friday

On Thursday (9/18) and Friday (9/19) we discussed the poem of the week "Harlem" by Langston Hughes. We also started reading "Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin. Students who have a missing poem or article of the week need to get those turned in!

Literary Terms, part 2

Today, we had a quiz on "A-ha" moments. This was based off of the lesson we had last time on "Crash" by Jerry Spinelli. Students watched a video and identified the "A-ha" clue words, what the speaker realized, and how it changed the speaker.

Then we defined the following literary terms:

• Foreshadowing
• Metaphor
• Simile
• Characters
• Suspense
• Chronological order
• Plot

We used this prezi to demonstrate the concepts.

Poem of the week: 

"Harlem" by Langston Hughes is due tomorrow.

Monday & Tuesday

Today, students received Poem of the Week "Harlem" by Langston Huges. It is located here.
Students should annotate the poem. They should write a 1/2-1 page paper about their thoughts, feelings, personal reflections on the poem.  Here is a Nike commercial that uses the poem.

We discussed "A-ha" moments and did an assignment in class. This is a walk-away. I will be grading these and talking to students who didn't pass the first assignment or the follow-up test.

Parent/Teacher conference is on Thursday 9/18.

Article of the Week

Today we had our first article of the week! It is located HERE. Students should read the article. As they read, they should annotate. Then, they should write a 1 page paper answering these 3 questions: 

• What should be done with the immigrant children who are flooding the US borders? Explain.
• What should be the future policy regarding illegal immigration?
• Select any passage and respond to it.

We also wrote an essay about "There Will Come Soft Rains" using a claim, 3 pieces of evidence, a counterclaim, and a conclusion. Students turned this in today before they left class.

Friday & Monday

We discussed the poem of the week. Students should not have simply summarized the poem, they should have written a response to the poem. They should have annotated the poem. Annotation is where students underline, mark, highlight, and write in the margin of the poem so that what they are thinking and feeling makes sense. They should have been looking at 1. Setting, 2. Theme, 3. Author bias, 4. Mood of the poem.

In class, we read "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury. The link is here.
We discussed this Prezi and wrote the first part of an essay.

Picture Day & Homework

Today in class students received a copy of "Incident" by Countee Cullen. It is HOMEWORK. Due next time in class. They should follow the directions on the top of the Poem of the Week, and also look at the poem we did in class called "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Sara Teasdale. Link here.

We also read the short story called "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury. Students were asked to mark contrasts and contradictions, and they were asked to mark questions, items they wanted to talk about, and anything that seemed odd for 1950. We discussed part of the story today and will discuss more next time.